I slip into the forest, heading in Caleb’s direction, not really caring anymore if they follow. Lillian crashes along after me, tripping over everything as if on purpose. She’s having a horrible time of it, and that’s only making me angrier. Her skin is reacting to every irritant possible, and she doesn’t do anything to counteract it. She even twists her ankle and pretends not to know how to mend it.
I glance at the ankle and see that it’s broken. She’s in a lot of pain. Crying, even. A sinking doubt starts to creep in on my anger. This can’t be an act anymore, can it? Tristan picks her up and carries her. Just seeing her in his arms, and the way she settles into him like she’s done it a million times before, eats away at me. I go ahead of them and give Tristan the direction of the rendezvous point in mindspeak.
When they arrive at camp after me, Caleb goes to them. Tristan tells him that the girl isn’t Lillian—he believes her story now. Caleb and I go to get the sachem. We bring the sachem to her, and he bends down close to look her in the eye. He asks her a few questions and makes up his mind.
“This isn’t Lillian, Rowan,” he says.
I fight it—of course I fight it. What Alaric doesn’t understand is that I can look into her cells and see the life helix. I know this is Lillian.
“Look in her eyes, Rowan,” he tells me. “There’s no death there.”
He has a point. I look down at the girl sitting next to the fire, and see again what I saw when I first laid eyes on her outside the café this morning. Innocence. Alaric asks me if this girl is as powerful as Lillian.
“There’s none stronger,” I say. And it’s true. She’s so heavy with power she seems to punch a hole in the night. But her power doesn’t flow through her as it should. It’s dammed up inside of her … because she’s never used it. More doubt weakens my resolve.
“Can she do everything that Lillian can?” Alaric asks.
“Maybe. With training,” I answer. I see something light up in Alaric’s eyes.
He speaks some more with her, but I barely hear them. Is she really from another world? I can’t accept it. Alaric has accepted it so easily. Too easily.
He orders me to fix her ankle, and I’m glad because it gives me something to do. I can’t look at her. I touch her ankle with my fingertips and focus on her injury. This is Lillian’s skin. I know it so well. The dusting of gold hair that rises when I skim my fingers over it. The taste. I’m losing focus again. I pull my thoughts back to where they belong and try to reduce the swelling.
My willstone flares and I look up at her. She gasps and swears and tries to pull away from me. “Your eyes are on fire!” she shouts. And just like that I don’t recognize her. This girl is a stranger to me.
It’s like ice down my back. “You’re not Lillian,” is all I can say.
“No. I’m really not,” she whispers.
Tristan comes back with the supplies. He’s worried about “Lily,” as she likes to be called. He thinks I might have hurt her. I guess I deserve that. I’ve been a brute all night, and as I replay my behavior, I’m embarrassed by the way I’ve been acting toward her. Lily. The stranger in Lillian’s body.
It occurs to me that I might not be able to heal her. She’s blocking me because she doesn’t trust me. I tell Tristan that she has to heal herself, using my stone. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before, but for some reason, I know it will work.
Lily watches me as I prepare the brew. Knowing that her eyes are on my hands makes me aware of them, and it takes me longer than it should. She has no idea what to do when I give her the boiling pot. She’s like a virtuoso who’s never heard music, and I get to be the one who teaches her to sing her first song.